The Microsoft Seed Fund has announced grants for Russian startups Appercode and xGenCloud. Novosibirsk-based Appercode will receive $60,000 (45,900 euro) and Moscow-based xGenCloud will take in $40,000 (30,600 euro). In addition to the grants, it is reported that Microsoft will give $60,000 worth of their cloud platform Windows Azure to the Moscow-based startup. The Microsoft Seed Fund is a program which was established in 2010 and is designed to support Russia-based startups. They say that they offer $30,000-100,000 (23,000-76,500 euro) depending on the specific case. They also offer a list of startups which have benefited from receiving grants.

I had an opportunity to get into contact with Appercode and was told that it is a platform for the development of mobile apps. I’m told that it is a set of tools based on a core with 80% of shared code. They tell me that they had difficulties in developing for themselves a cross-platform application using .NET/C#. As a result, they ended up spending 9 months developing the prototype of a mobile-development platform. Using their service a developer can implement basic functionality of C# and then port it to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 because of the Xamarin, Silverlight, and WinRT technologies. Essentially, it is designed to speed and lower costs for the process of cross-platform mobile development. Appercode is a resident of the Academpark incubator in Novosibirsk.

For its part, xGenCloud is a service which aims to popularize the study of genetics by providing a platform for sharing information on genetics among medical professionals, for offering information to patients, and for the offering of mass genetic testing. According to information from the site, the platform developed by xGenCloud will analyze the patient’s attributes, select the tests, and then analyze them in a manner that the patient can easily understand. Then, the results will be stored in the cloud using the Windows Azure platform.Tweet